I’m very sorry you did not drop in. You should not
have listened to the “overzealous”
doctors.[2]

Why aren’t things working out in Yelets Uyezd? This
worries me very much, and still more your “side-stepping”
on this question. Clearly, things do not work out. From 19
volosts with Poor Peasants’ Committees, not one clear,
precise report!

In not one single volost (though there should be in 19)
have 3-5 intelligent workers from Petrograd (with 15–50
assistants from Moscow) been brought in. Nowhere are
there any indications that work is proceeding apace!

What is wrong? Please do reply. Appoint correspondents
for me in each volost, give them this letter of mine, and
let them all reply to me.

Notes

[2]Lenin wrote this letter when he was ill after being seriously
wounded on August 30, 1918, by the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist,
Fanny Kaplan.

In spite of the doctors’ orders, only a few days after being
wounded, Lenin began to occupy himself with affairs of state.
On September 16 the doctors allowed him to resume work. From
September 23 to mid-October Lenin was recuperating at Gorki
near Moscow.

The letter mentions the harvesting of grain in Yelets Uyezd,
Orel Gubernia. On this subject see also this volume, Document
182.

The original bears the date “7.IX.1918”. But in the files of
the Council of People’s Commissars there is a copy of this letter
on which in an unknown hand is written the date “6/IX” and
the time of dispatch “21.10 hours” (Ts. G.A.O.R., USSR).
Moreover, on the night of September 6, Tsyurupa informed
Zinoviev in Petrograd: “today Vladimir llyich... wrote a letter” (
Petrogradskaya Pravda No. 194, September 7, 1918). This gives
grounds for assuming that the letter was written on September 6,
1918.